Built in 2004, the Class A warehouse facility sits on 21.76 acres in the Chickasaw Distribution Center at the northwest corner of Holmes and Crumpler roads. The Shelby County Assessor of Property’s 2012 appraisal is $12.2 million.

The purchase marked Industrial Income Trust’s second Memphis acquisition this year. The company in July bought an 890,000-square-foot industrial portfolio in Southeast Memphis from CRP Holdings B LP for $24.3 million.

Prior to this recent sale, the city-county Industrial Development Board quitclaimed the property to Industrial Property Fund VI, which owned the building through the IDB’s payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) program.

Source: The Daily News Online & Chandler Reports

– Daily News staff

American Home Shield Names Marketing Officer

Philipp von Holtzendorff-Fehling has been named vice president and chief marketing officer of American Home Shield.

Von Holtzendorff-Fehling comes to the division of The ServiceMaster Co. after serving as chief marketing officer of The Dallas Morning News.

He has also led marketing and customer relationship efforts in the banking and tourism industries.

Like ServiceMaster, American Home Shield is headquartered in Memphis.

The home warranty and preventative maintenance contract company recently marked its 40th anniversary.

The seminar will be held from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the FedEx Institute of Technology at the University of Memphis.

It’s being hosted by the MEAC, a collaboration of agencies working together to assist startups and existing entrepreneurs in creating and growing new business enterprises through intensive mentorship-driven programs targeting new business development in some of Memphis’ strongest business sectors.

The MEAC includes: The MMBC Continuum, Seed Hatchery, Memphis Bioworks Foundation, Emerge Memphis and the Bartlett Area Chamber of Commerce.

Topics covered at the seminar will include opportunities related to distribution and warehousing, and the four Rs – Rail, River, Road and Ramp – among other things.

Registration is free and seats are still available. Continental breakfast and lunch will be provided.

– Andy Meek

Corps Not Budging on Mississippi River Flap

The Army Corps of Engineers has turned back requests by federal lawmakers and the barge industry to release more of the Missouri River it is withholding, believing the drought-starved Mississippi River the Missouri feeds still will remain open to shipping despite mounting concerns.

Army Assistant Secretary Jo-Ellen Darcy, in a Thursday letter obtained by The Associated Press, told lawmakers from Mississippi River states she doesn’t consider it necessary to boost Missouri River flows into the Mississippi – something the politicians urgently had sought.

Darcy, a top Army Corps official, noted this week’s revised National Weather Service forecast, which showed the Mississippi’s level wasn’t falling as rapidly as expected.

She also said the corps is hastening its push to rid the river of rock pinnacles south of St. Louis that endanger barges when the water level is low.

Darcy also reinforced what the Corps has been insisting for weeks: Reducing the Missouri’s flow is necessary because low levels in its upper basin could negatively affect recreation in the upper Missouri while impacting drinking water supplies, animal habitat and hydropower. Darcy added that the corps is legislatively bound to act in the best interest of the Missouri River, with what happens on the Mississippi incidental.

The Missouri Democrat asserted Friday the corps would be to blame if shipping on the Mississippi – a corridor on which everything from grain to coal, chemicals and petroleum products is transported – gets slowed or shut down completely.

The corps last month began paring the outflow from an upper Missouri River dam in South Dakota with plans to gradually cut about two-thirds of the flow through next Tuesday.

That action stoked concerns among Mississippi River barge operators, given that Missouri River water accounts for about 78 percent of the Mississippi at St. Louis.

– The Associated Press

US Economy Adds 146,000 Jobs, Rate Falls to 7.7 Percent

U.S. hiring gains held steady in November despite disruptions from Superstorm Sandy and employers’ concerns about impending tax increases from the year-end “fiscal cliff.”

Companies added 146,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent – the lowest in nearly four years – from 7.9 percent in October. The rate declined mainly because more people stopped looking for work and weren’t counted as unemployed.

The government said Superstorm Sandy had only a minimal effect on the figures.

The Labor Department’s report Friday was a mixed one. But on balance, it suggested that the job market is gradually improving.

November’s job gains were roughly the same as the average monthly increase this year of about 150,000.

Most national economists are encouraged by the job growth because it’s occurred even as companies have reduced investment in heavy machinery and other equipment.

“The good news is not that the labor market is improving rapidly – it isn’t – but that employment growth is holding up despite all the fears over the fiscal cliff,” said Nigel Gault, an economist at IHS Global Insight.

Still, Friday’s report included some discouraging signs. Employers added 49,000 fewer jobs in October and September combined than the government had initially estimated.

And economists noted that the unemployment rate would have risen if more people hadn’t stopped looking for work. Once people without jobs stop looking for one, they’re no longer counted as unemployed.